Dreams - some broken, others achieved...

INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL/ POLITICS

Pranab Mukherjee looks back over six decades of scars and successes.

It is fascinating to recall the journey our nation has traversed in the last six decades since independence and how we prevented ourselves from taking wrong turns along that road. The size of the first Union budget was around Rs 210 crore.

A few months ago, my friend P Chidambaram placed a budget of more than Rs 600,000 crore before the nation. Indian Railways, in 1951, at the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan, carried freight amounting to 93 million tonnes. In 2003-04, it carried 682 million tonnes of goods.

The 1950s laid the foundation stones of our political system, which presents a sharp contrast with our neighbours. Jawaharlal Nehru enjoyed 17 years as prime minister. In those 17 years there was continual instability in Pakistan. Prime Minister Liyaqat Ali was killed, his assassin lynched in public.

A succession of prime ministers, three out of six from East Pakistan, followed, none of them able to rule for more than a year. In 1958, Pakistan declared martial law for the first time. Later, Ayub Khan introduced the concept of "basic democracy" and, under martial law, got himself elected president by a "limited electorate".

India in the 1960s bears marks of conflicts. First, the Chinese dispute (1962) and then the war with Pakistan (1965). These led to tremendous economic problems within the country. The rupee was devalued, Plan holiday was forced and acute food shortages occurred. But despite problems, this was also the time when India took the Green Revolution leap.

Internationally, we landed in a spot because of our strained relations with China and Pakistan. Then Nehru died. That the Congress would have leadership problems proved just speculation. Lal Bahadur Shastri took over. But when Shastri died, succession was not that easy. For the first time, there was a contest in the party and Indira Gandhi won. But this was the beginning of a power struggle, which ultimately eroded the party.

The Congress parliamentary board resorted to voting to decide on its presidential candidate. After Zakir Hussain's death, Mrs Gandhi wanted a Muslim President so she initially proposed Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed's name.

But the party high command ruled otherwise. Mrs Gandhi believed the PM should have an overwhelming say to decide on the presidential candidate of the ruling party because the value of MPs' vote was nearly 50 per cent of the electoral college.

As a Prime Minister must enjoy the confidence of the majority of MPs, she argued that the PM should not be ignored in selecting a President. She suspected the party bosses wanted to control the PM through the selection of a presidential candidate. During this time, the "syndicate" took shape. Kamraj Nadar, Nijalingappa, Atulya Ghosh and SK Patil were its main faces.

In 1967, the Congress lost a number of state governments. The strength in the Lok Sabha came down to 280, whereas the party earlier enjoyed a membership of 360 in a house of 520. To make matters worse, in November 1969 the Congress split. With the symbol frozen, about 60 MPs left the party from the Lok Sabha.

This was the era of social legislation, like the abolition of the Privy Purse. Mrs Gandhi's finance minister, Morarji Desai, was not attuned to her thinking. Indira Gandhi removed Morarji Desai from the finance minister's office. She bluntly told Desai that she wanted to pursue her economic agenda and he was not suitable to implement it."

When the party split, the DMK's support came in handy. Opposed to Kamraj, the DMK found a friend in Mrs Gandhi. She also managed support from the Left. West Bengal had 40 seats "" 25 belonged to small Left parties. They all supported Mrs Gandhi. But the turbulent relations between Mrs Gandhi and the party deepened. The CWC directed that Mrs Gandhi should be removed.

But, in retaliation the Congress parliamentary board resolved: Indira Gandhi is our leader. Another landmark incident was the famous Golaknath case. Prior to this, it was commonly accepted that Parliament had sweeping powers to change the Constitution.

But the Supreme Court ruled in that case that fundamental rights could not be amended. Some legal amendments initiated by Mrs Gandhi's cabinet were struck down by the apex court. Interestingly, the Privy Purse Bill was rejected because it fell short of one vote in its favour.

In 1971, Mrs Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and went to the hustings. Her mainstay was social legislation. She appealed to voters to give her powers to bring in this legislation. And eventually got it. With a two-thirds majority, Mrs Gandhi again became PM. The year was a milestone in our military achievements too.

For the first time, we won a war decisively. A new nation, Bangladesh, was born but we had to pay a heavy price. The economic problems were aggravated by three consecutive droughts. I vividly remember, in September 1974 the inflation rate was as high as 24 per cent.

A decision was taken to freeze dividends and dearness allowance. There was a change of guard in the Ministry of Finance. C Subramaniam became Finance Minister and I was made MoS (finance). Then appeared on the scene Jayaprakash Narayanji, who launched a movement against corruption.

On June 25, 1975, the Cabinet declared the Emergency. Inflation came down but people didn't accept the Emergency. In the next general election we lost heavily. In UP, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and most of North India we didn't get a single seat.

Though we got most of the seats in the south, in MP and Rajasthan the Congress had just one seat each. But in the political history of India, this was the time when some long-cherished dreams came true. Morarji Desai had wanted to become the Prime Minister 11 years ago. He got his chance now. N Sanjeeva Reddy had wanted to be President. His wish, too, was fulfilled after nine years.

The Congress suffered another split in 1978. But this time most of our colleagues went with Y B Chavan and Brahmanand Reddy. Very few remained loyal to Mrs Gandhi. The years 1978 and 1979 also saw the revival of our party.

The challenge posed by terrorism arose during this decade. Assam and Punjab saw the rise of militancy. We lost Mrs Gandhi to terrorism. Rajiv Gandhi took over in 1984 in a smooth transition process. But before that, two new forces had emerged in Indian politics: N T Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh and Ramakrishna Hegde in Karnataka.

In 1991, we lost Rajiv Gandhi to terrorism. He died in a terrorist attack in Tamil Nadu. P V Narasimha Rao became prime minister and gave a push to economic liberalisation in a big way. This continues even now.

We have travelled a long way in freedom. But yes, we still have a long way to go.